Silence
by skysedge
Summary: The storm has passed.  Rated for mild gore and darker themes.


**A/N **_Written in a scrawl while on a train between Canterbury and London. Oh, how I have misses making Jizabel angst. Reviews make me grin like a crazy person._

_-x-_

The storm has passed.

Jizabel is standing with his back to the door, staring forwards with unshielded eyes. His spectacles lie under the armoire, their spindle frames twisted. The lenses have shattered, the pieces hiding amidst the other shards scattered on the floor, only distinguishable from them by their transparency. The others are thicker and reflect the sickly light from the flickering gas lamps back towards the ceiling. Mirror-shards, designed to reflect beauty. Some of them, the larger ones, are smeared with blood as rich and red as a ripened apple, forbidden fruit.

The mirror is no more. Jizabel is staring upwards at the ornate metalwork that now frames nothing, just an empty oval on the wall. Before the storm, this room had been a chaos of books and papers, pens with sharp metal nibs and ink as thick as tar. Now, the room is chaos itself, the glass weighing ripped papers against the floorboards, the neat documents blotted with blood. Ink too, since everything that could have been broken is now damaged beyond all hope of repair.

One thing had been broken to start with and this, this destruction, this material pain, is nothing to him.

Jizabel stares at the gaping absence where the mirror should be and wonders why he still can't see his reflection. He had been sure he was hiding behind the mirror. During the storm, the demon had told him so. He'd leant to trust its words at a very young age.

Tonight, the storm has been particularly violent. It always is, on nights like this, nights when the gashes in his back are screaming fresh, nights when the words have been too free, truth too close, memories too real. The storm clouds had started gathering the moment his name has been spoken but they hadn't broken until he was locked in his study and the corridors fell silent. As always, its timing has been perfect.

The storms are always noisy and unpredictable and this one had been no different. The air had filled with crashing, ripping, tearing, _breaking_. Softer sounds had accompanied this extended crescendo, the whimpering of a lost child, the whispering of a lost man, the slick and silken tear of skin being rent asunder.

The demon had been louder than everything. It screamed like a banshee in the darkness of his mind, spat the vile and noxious truth from blackened lips and laughed from the darkest cell in Bedlam. It had swept through the room using Jizabel's hands and brought forth the rain from his eyes and skin, both clear and crimson. And then...

Peace. Release. A clear if darkened sky. And the silence. The demon's rage always subsides and leaves an absence far more unsettling than that within the mirror frame.

The storm has passed. The demon had subsided. Jizabel stands in a silent void and holds another void behind his eyes, his own private part of oblivion. In this moment, he is free.

A silver shard falls from his raw fingers and clatters against the floorboards beneath his bare feet. There is another clutched in his left hand. He curls his fingers more tightly around it and the void drinks the pain as the mess of paper below eagerly drinks the scarlet life that continues to fall.

The skies are clear but the cycle is not yet over. The second visitor has yet to appear.

The door sings to the tune of a lockpick, the scraping of metal a grating shriek in the silence that lays heavily over the interior of the room. Jizabel doesn't need to move. This time, the mirror doesn't reflect the door opening and closing, nor the dark shadow that slips into the room. It approaches Jizabel from behind with light steps. It measures the destruction with disappointment that resonates without words.

Jizabel closes his eyes.

This is another demon. It has to be. What angel could wade through this darkness without its wings burning away to ashes? This demon is not loud like the other, nor is it violent and cruel in its honesty. This demon is silent and sorrowful, softening the air with a refusal to acknowledge the truth, not even its own presence in this room.

It presses one small hand against Jizabel's naked back, fingers sliding in the blood. A soft breath cools the burning in his lacerated nerves. Another hand gently wraps around Jizabel's left wrist, being too small to take his hand, and raises the shard of glass up before them.

Jizabel doesn't fight against this. The hand against his back is soft, comforting, and he cannot help the longing. On nights like this, he gives in and accepts the gesture of warmth. It is not who he wishes it to be. But he is free now and he chooses to mimic the little one and deny the truth.

The hand on his wrist pivots his own until the shard becomes a mirror again, slim but taller than his hand. He catches a glimpse of his own reflection, his true self, and he looks weary and fragile and frightened. The shard is angled downwards until he can see the demon that is now running feather-light fingers over his wounds. Jizabel's lashes brush his cheeks as his eyes flutter closed. Another soft breath whispers against his skin and he opens them again.

He sees the little demon, his shadow, his dark angel with ashen wings. It watches him from the reflection and grieves. It watches him through Cassia's dark eyes and touches him with malformed hands of one who has known suffering, who has fought against the void, who has sunk so deeply into the silence that he had never fully returned.

Jizabel closes his eyes and loses himself in the void. He will awake in the pale light of dawn, still standing in front of the broken mirror. The shard from his hand will be gone, there will be a box of medical supplies on the bed and the door will be locked. In the afternoon, he will wear long sleeves and high collars. He will summon Cassian and they will fill the day with meaningless talk, tasks, orders given and obeyed, insults thrown and ignored.

There will be no silence. They shall make sure there is no time.

Tonight will not be mentioned. Tonight will be denied. Tonight will not be forgotten.

The silence starts to seep out into the night and Jizabel begins a waking dream.

The storm has passed. For tonight.


End file.
